CENTRE FOR THE AESTHETIC REVOLUTION

Sunday, 27 December 2015

MAM Rio de Janeiro, designed by Affonso Eduardo Reidy in 1953 and inaugurated in 1967

DGF as Fitzcarraldo at the entrance of the exhibition

Temporama, exhibition views

DGF as Marlyn Monroe inside the swimming pool of Temporama

the city of Rio as seen from the blue filter of Temporama

The Parque do Flamengo and the Pão de Açucar as seen from the red filter of Temporama

a rock from the Burle Marx garden below inside the exhibition room

untitled 1985/2015

vase and lily flower on radioclock

untitled 1985/2015

books, bricks and wood

the red desert 1991/2015

red carpets

untitled 1987/2015

plastic buckets and architect lamps

untitled 1987/2015

tennis balls and glass screen

untitled 1985/2015

two telephones

plage parallele 1999/2015

two towels

untitled 1987/2015

aluminium objects and survival blanket

untitled 1985/2015

wood structure

(AE=eternal love (amor eterno))

abstract handkerchief 1986/2015

untitled 1986/2015

carpet on wall and carpet column

vitrine with original documents and photographs of when the works were first shown

visitors to the exhibition

DGF giving an interview

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Pablo Leon de la Barra

night inside Temporama, game of reflections

Double Happiness neon 1999/2015

installed at Bar do Mineiro in Santa Teresa in Rio

Bar do Mineiro's Diogenes Paixão and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

TEMPORAMA DOMINIQUE GONZALEZ-FOERSTER20 de Junho a 09 de Agosto de 2015

Temporama is a chronotropic portrait of the artist as a young woman and brings back to life works done by Dominique Gonzalez-Foersterbetween 1985 and 1991, during and soon after her art school years; many of these works are being recreated for the very first time for this exhibition. The early works are full of incipient intuitions and immature desires, exploring ideas and materials that would with time become essential to the artist’s practice: the experience of time and space, the presence of horizontality and color, and the use of carpets, books, and domestic objects as constitutive and recurring elements within the work.

Temporama creates a time zone where the different works coexist, where the past is rethought and the future reimagined. More than an exhibition,Temporama is a time machine,but also an interior park and a garden, a swimming pool and a landscape.

As part of a new work created specially for MAM Rio, Gonzalez-Foerster appears as Marilyn Monroe in the famous skinny dip scene from her unfinished last movie,Something’s Got to Give (1962), with this connecting us back to the early modern days of the museum and the mid-sixties when Gonzalez-Foerster was born.

MAM’s glass facades covered with red and blue filters become like 3-D glasses that activate the space, allowing the landscape outside to merge with the exhibition space and the art works inside, which in Temporama all become transformed through cultural, artistic, architectural, and emotional metabolization.

Operating in the space between art, cinema, architecture, and literature, most of Gonzalez-Foerster’s work in the past three decades has been concerned with the possibility of physical and mental travel through space and time as a strategy for revealing an emotional understanding of space, memory, reality, and fiction. In a similar way to how she has inhabited rooms, moments, and places, Gonzalez-Foerster has recently embodied many different characters, including Lola Montez, King Ludwig II, Edgar Allan Poe, Bob Dylan, Vera Nabokov, and Fitzcarraldo.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster has exhibited all around the world since 1985. She lives between Paris and Rio de Janeiro, and her artistic thinking and practice have been deeply influenced by her experience of Rio. Since 1998 she has developed an extensive body of work related to Brazil, including four films and participations in the 2006 São Paulo Biennale and the 2013 Panorama da Arte Brasileira, both curated by Lisette Lagnado. Her site-specific installation, Desert Park (2010), is located in Inhotim, in Minas Gerais. Through her long-time conversation with Brazilian modern architecture and by showing very early works, Gonzalez-Foerster offers the opportunity to see MAM with different eyes as a setting for twentieth century experiencesand a place of origins and endless beginnings.

Pablo León de la BarraCurator

The Swimming Pool soundtrack includes songs by Arto Lindsay, Cibelle, Miss Kittin, and Tetine. Temporama is a prelude to Gonzalez-Foerster’s retrospective taking place at Centre George Pompidou in Paris this September.

First let me offer congratulations, because politicians are expected to make history and today, December 17th, 2014, has been a historic day.

You have made history by proposing that the embargo/blockade become empty words. With the restoration of diplomatic relations, you have transformed the meaning of fifty-three years of policies defined by one side (the United States) and used by the other (Cuba) to ideologically guide the daily lives of Cubans everywhere. I wonder if this gesture is not also a proposal to kill ideology itself? Cuba is finally seeing itself, not from the perspective of death, but of life. But, I wonder, what will that life be and who will have the right to that new life?

Very well then, Raúl:

As a Cuban, today I call for the right to know what is being planned with our lives and, as part of this new phase, for the establishment of a politically transparent process in which we will all be able to participate, and to have the right to hold different opinions without punishment. When it comes time to reconsider what has defined who we are, that it not include the same intolerance and indifference which has so far accompanied changes in Cuba-a process in which acquiescence is the only option.

As a Cuban, today I demand there be no more privileges or social inequalities. The Cuban Revolution distributed privileges to those in government or deemed trustworthy (read: loyal) by the government. This has not changed. Privilege created the social inequalities under which we have always lived, inequalities which were then rationalized as a revolutionary meritocracy and are now being transformed into a reliable entrepreneurial class. I demand that the emotional and tangible rights of those who cannot participate in this new phase-those at the bottom-be protected.

As a Cuban, today I demand that we not be defined by the financial markets nor by how useful we can be to government. I call for equality for the Cuban who, due to the blockade/embargo, spent his life working in a factory only to come home a proud worker's hero but now has no place in a world of foreign investments and can only hope to receive a pension defined by the standards of socialist times, not by today's market economy. What is the plan, Raul, to avoid the same mistakes made by the countries from the former socialist camp? To avoid returning to the Cuba of 1958? How do we repair the emotional abuse the Cuban people have endured through the politics of recent years? How do we ensure there is social and material justice? How do we guarantee we will not become a colony, that we won't have to accept our new providers without question-as happened first with the Soviet Union and then with Venezuela?

As a Cuban, today I call for the right of peaceful protest in the streets to support or denounce any government decision without fear of reprisal. I call for the legal right to establish associations and political parties with platforms that differ from that of the ruling party. I call for the decriminalization of civic activism, civil society, and of those with different points of view. I demand that the legitimacy of political parties born of the popular will be recognized. I call for direct elections in which all political parties are allowed to participate, and for ideological discrepancies to be resolved with debate and not via acts of repudiation.

As a Cuban, today I demand the right to be a political being-not merely an economic entities or symbolic exchange to make history.

As a Cuban, Raúl, today I want to know the vision for the nation we are building.

As an artist, Raul, I propose you today to exhibit "Tatlin's Whisper #6" at the Plaza de la Revolución (Revolution Square). Let's open the microphones and let all voices be heard. Let's not offer just the clatter of coins to fulfill our lives. Let's turn on the microphones. Let's learn together to make something of our dreams.

Today I'd like to I propose that Cubans take to the streets wherever they may be on December 30th to celebrate, not the end of a blockade/embargo, but the beginning of our civil rights.

Let's make sure it's the Cuban people who will benefit from this new historic moment. Our homeland is what hurts us.

Following the Open Letter sent by the artist Tania Bruguera to Cuban President Raúl Castro on December 17th, a volunteer civic platform sprung up from its key phrase, "I demand," with the purpose of gathering on December 30th at La Plaza de la Revolución in Havana to call for the political, economic, cultural and civil rights of Cuban citizens. #YOTAMBIENEXIJO is a public and inclusive platform.

The answer to the question "Who are we?" is none other than "Who am I?" If you are Cuban and you believe in the restitution of your rights, then this platform is you.

WHAT DO WE WANT?

A call to Cubans to come peacefully to La Plaza de la Revolución in Havana on December 30th in order to use an open microphone to make a personal gesture in a public space. Speaking for ourselves is the first step toward the reclamation of our rights. Everyone has the floor. Make La Plaza de la Revolución the place for discussion and debate. LA PLAZA ES TU PLAZA.

HOW DO WE WANT IT?

Next December 30th at 3 P.M. EST, #YOTAMBIENEXIJO will gather, without violence and without fear, at La Plaza de la Revolución to transform it into a space of respect for diversity of opinions about what kind of country we want to build. True freedom means tolerance.

Cubans call for a peaceful gathering in La Plaza de Revolución. After the joint announcement from Cuba and the U.S. about the reestablishment of diplomatic relations, Cuban citizens, based on the demands articulated in #YoTambienExijo, call for a peaceful gathering in Havana's historic Plaza de la Revolución on December 30th at 3 p.m. (local time) in order to discuss, via an open microphone, what kind of nation they want for themselves.

"It would be a personal gesture in a public space. Speaking for ourselves is the first step toward the reclamation of our rights. Everyone will have the floor. Make the La Plaza de la Revolución a space for discussion and debate", said the organizers of #YoTambienExijo. The group's Facebook FanPage added more than 1,000 likes in the first 24 hours after the historic news.

Following the Open Letter sent by Cuban artist Tania Bruguera to Cuban President Raúl Castro, the U.S. President Barack Obama and Pope Francis on December 17th, a civic, volunteer and non-partisan movement sprung up.

Based on the key phrase from the letter, "I demand," Cubans will reclaim their civil, political, economic and cultural rights. "#YOTAMBIENEXIJO is a public and inclusive platform. The answer to the question "Who are we?" is no other than "Who am I?" If you are Cuban and you do believe in the restitution of your rights, then this platform is you", states the call."Today, as a Cuban, I demand to be informed about the plans being made with our lives, and that, as part of this new stage, a process of political transparency be established; where we all can have a space of participation and the right to have a different opinion that won't be punished (...) "Today, as a Cuban, I want to know which is the idea of Nation that we are building", asserts Tania Bruguera in her Open Letter to the three Chiefs of State.

Following the news of December 17th that stirred our Nation, I sent a letter to the Cuban newspaper Granma (which, of course, was not published). After its publication by other press media, a group of Cuban citizens with no party affiliation reacted to a phrase in this letter that calls all Cubans to gather next December 30th at La Plaza to speak out at an open microphone.

They have created the platform #YoTambienExijo (http://www.facebook.com/YoTambienExijo) to which they have invited me, and so far, it has added more than 1000 persons with the common purpose of making real what was kind of a metaphor in my letter or maybe an unconscious desire that slipped out of my mind due to that day's commotion.

The idea is to get together at La Plaza on December the 30th at 15:00 in order to speak and discuss peacefully about what concerns us in these days, to be there and let others know of what we think and our reasons for it, in an atmosphere of tolerance and respect.

Let there be diversity of opinions and topics so we can discuss and talk among us all. We do not have any kind of agenda nor follow any particular ideology; we just want people to come, those that have not found a space to share their doubts or experiences, and those that felt they were not represented by the alternative spaces already open.

Let's all come: housewives, self-employed persons, movie makers, mechanics, taxi drivers, managers, sex workers, students, marginalized persons, teachers, retired persons, farmers, blue collar workers, in fact all; let's get together and think about what is the concept of nation that we want to build and put into practice. We are not going to celebrate the potential ending of the embargo; we want to celebrate the birth of our rights. On this day we are not going to claim our rights, instead we are going to exercise our rights.

It would be great to interact with you on that day at La Plaza, as a direct reference to a work I did at the 2009 Bienal de la Habana, where I set a microphone that was used by those who stood for the Revolution, those who criticized it, those who couldn't understand our reality, those who were afraid, and those who tried to vocalize their right to express their ideas.

It would be an honor to have you there. See you on December 30th at La Plaza. A different Plaza, our Plaza.

Given the diversity of views that are summoned there and the passion with which Cubans defend their ideas.

Given the fact that we have received proposals from Cubans around the world who also want to speak from their Plaza.

Given the peaceful nature of the #YoTambienExijo platform that promotes the meeting of the 30th of December.

We want to provide access to instructions, so that this work may be performed with us in Havana, or elsewhere.

Ten instructions to activate the work "Tatlin's Whisper# 6"
(Note: Before starting the work a person explains the rules to all present).

1. The microphone is open for anyone who wants to use it.

2. Each person has a minute to speak whereupon should leave the microphone to those who follow and respect the right of others to express themselves on equal terms.

3. Each group to perform this piece can choose in what way they will indicate that the intervention time is over. We suggest: clapping, finger snaps, a buzzer alarm sound, a musical instrument.

4. The main rule of this work is that ALL reviews are welcome and the audience may NOT stop the intervention. If someone disagrees he/she can use its minute at the microphone to offer a different opinion.

5. Each person involved in the performance will speak from his/her point of view. No spokespersons or alternative institutions or government groups will be accepted. It is a public but individual action.

6. Vulgarity, swearword, curse, calls to violence, discrimination or affronts to the integrity of individuals, shall not be accepted.

7. Illegal acts or violent actions against public order are not accepted.

8. The length of the work is up to the public. In the event the work spans for several hours and recurrent ideas are detected, the audience can resolve to establish a new 'open mic' to talk about a specific topic. Whenever a new group starts, the rules will be explained again.

9. The order of speakers will be determined by the order in which the word is requested. The order of speakers should be respected.

10. The work is an Art Space where we all can design our desires and our human imaginaries.

The aim of the artistic performance "Tatlin's Whisper # 6" that Cuban artist Tania Bruguera will perform at La Plaza de la Revolución of the city of Havana, Cuba, on December 30th at 15:00 (local time), is that Cubans peacefully express the ideas they have about their nation and its future, after the re-establishment of relations between Cuba and the United States.

"The work is an artistic event that will allow Cubans to speak with their own voice on issues that concern them on the verge of a new year," said Bruguera, who is widely recognized throughout Cuba and abroad for her work and reflections on the social role of art. For a full minute, any Cuban attending the performance may claim his/her rights and talk about his/her dreams and everyday problems. Similar to the performance "Tatlin's Whisper # 6", held on the Havana Biennial 2009 at an ‘open microphone'. This will render all attendees have their turn to speak.

The initiative is an example of political art and the role of art in society. "It's what I call ‘Art Made for a political specific timing', which can be translated as a work done for a particular context and political situation," says the artist. "Performances and initiatives such as that to be held in La Plaza are usual in other countries. The social and artistic movements have always been connected, one of the soundest cases in Latin America was that of ‘Tucumán Arde', for example," says Bruguera, who has her home-studio in Cuba and lives among the United States, France and in any country where her work develops.

In Letter to Pope Francis this December 26th before leaving to Cuba, Bruguera said: "Dear Pope, our freedom is also in your protection. We need your blessing at a time when we have clearly in mind the words of John Paul II, who in that same Plaza asked Cubans not to be afraid, to open to the world, so that the world could open to us."

The artistic action will be a peaceful event where calls to violence, discrimination, affronts to the integrity of individuals, illegal acts or violent actions against public order, will not be tolerated or accepted, the artist clarified in the letter addressed to the Pope.

At a meeting on Saturday December 27th with Bruguera, the President of the National Council of Arts, Ruben del Valle, made clear that the state agency does not support the organization, disclosure, or legal procedures necessary for carrying out the work. Bruguera then confirmed: "The work will be performed. This is a contribution of Art to the necessary discussion of ideas in Cuban society. "

Useful Art for a better society

Civil Platform #YoTambienExijo emerged as a result of the Open Letter Bruguera forwarded on December 17th to Pope Francis, President Barack Obama, and Cuban President Raul Castro in response to the announcement of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States. The Platform brings together dozens of Cubans inside and outside of Cuba on behalf of human rights.

"Processes like this expand the borders of the world, and as Cuba is part of the world, we see this as a very positive deed for Cuban society, to be involved in global art and human rights movements, promoting and rescuing the faith for a better world" defended the Cuban artist. Bruguera, spokesperson for the Platform, said the action is based on the need for Cubans to publicly share their expectations on the surprising political shift between the island and the United States. "Cubans have the right to ask questions and to receive answers," justified the artist.

As for the Platform #YoTambienExijo, she said that it "was born as an inclusive project with no political affiliation or belief, from concerns among friends, acquaintances of acquaintances, but without any experience in activism and leadership within Cuban civil society."

EXHIBITIONS, PROJECTS AND TEXTS BY PLB

ABOUT ME

"At the end of the fifteenth of his 'Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Mankind' Schiller states a paradox and makes a promise. He declares that ‘Man is only completely human when he plays’, and assures us that this paradox is capable ‘of bearing the whole edifice of the art of the beautiful and of the still more difficult art of living’. We could reformulate this thought as follows: there exists a specific sensory experience—the aesthetic—that holds the promise of both a new world of Art and a new life for individuals and the community. There are different ways of coming to terms with this statement and this promise. You can say that they virtually define the ‘aesthetic illusion’ as a device which merely serves to mask the reality that aesthetic judgement is structured by class domination. In my view that is not the most productive approach..." from
Jacques Rancier, 'The Aesthetic Revolution and its Outcomes', New Left Review 14, April-March 2002

SHORT BIO

Pablo León de la Barra is an exhibition maker, independent curator and researcher. He was born in Mexico City in 1972. León de la Barra has a PhD in History and Theories from the Architectural Association, London. He has curated among other exhibitions ‘To Be Political it Has to Look Nice’ (2003) at apexart and Art in General in New York; ‘PR04 Biennale’ (2004, co-curator) in Puerto Rico; ‘George and Dragon at ICA’ (2005) at the ICA-London; ‘Glory Hole’ (2006) at the Architecture Foundation-London; ‘Sueño de Casa Propia’(2007-2008, in collaboration with Maria Ines Rodriguez) at Centre de Art Contemporaine-Geneve, Casa Encendida-Madrid, Casa del Lago-Mexico City, and Cordoba, Spain; ‘This Is Not America’ at Beta Local in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2009); ‘Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, Yucatan and Elsewhere’, at the CCE in Guatemala (2010); ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’, Cerith Wyn Evans at Casa Barragan, Mexico City (2010); ‘Incidents of Mirror Travel in Yucatan and Elsewhere’, at Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2011); 'Bananas is my Business: the Southamerican Way' at Museu Carmen Miranda, Rio de Janeiro (co-curated with Julieta Gonzalez, 2011); 'MicroclimaS' at Kunsthalle Zurich (2012); 'Esquemas para una Oda Tropical', Rio de Janeiro, 2012; 'Marta 'Che' Traba' at Museo La Ene, Buenos Aires (2012); Novo Museo Tropical at Teoretica, San Jose, Costa Rica (2012); Museu Labirinto / Museum of Unlimited Growth, ArtRio, Rio de Janeiro (2012); The Camino Real Arcades, Lima, Peru (2012). PLB has acted as advisor and/or art curator for the following art fairs: Pinta/London (2010-12), Maco/Mexico (2009-1012), Circa/Puerto Rico (2010), La Otra/Bogota (2009), ArteBA/ Buenos Aires (2012), ArtRio/Rio de Janeiro (2011-2013). León de la Barra has written amongst other publications for: Frog/Paris, PinUp/New York, Purple/Paris, Spike/Austria, Tar/Italy, Wallpaper/London, Celeste/Mexico, Tomo/Mexico, Rufino/Mexico, Ramona/Buenos Aires, Metropolis M/Amsterdam, Numero Cero/Puerto Rico. PLB has also written texts for many artists and exhibition catalogues, lectured internationally and participated in many international symposiums where relevant topics to arts, culture and society have been discussed. PLB was co-director of ‘24-7’ an artists-curatorial collective in London from 2002-2005 and artistic director of ‘Blow de la Barra’ in London from 2005-2008. From 2005 to 2012 he was curator of the White Cubicle Gallery in London, a community art space which he also founded. He is also founder of the Novo Museo Tropical, a museum yet to physically exist somewhere in the tropics and curated the First Bienal Tropical in San Juan Puerto Rico (2011). He is also the publisher of Pablo Internacional Editions and editor of his own blog the Centre for the Aesthetic Revolution. He lives and works between London, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, San Juan, Bogota, Lima, Athens, Beirut...